A word from Sergeant Thul

One thing we have learned from the response to our poll on the Great American Novel is that Power Line readers are passionate about books. We therefore struck a nerve when we posted the request from Sergeant Dave Thul, serving in the Minnesota National Guard in Iraq, to help him out with conservative reading material for his unit. Under the heading “Book Avalanche,” Sergeant Thul writes:

Wow. Really, I’m at a loss for words here. I just got back from a 3 day mission and stopped by the mail room to find nearly 30 more packages of books and magazines. The response has been overwhelming not only in quantity of packages, or in quality of the books and magazines people choose to send, but most of all in the heartfelt notes my soldiers and I have been reading with almost every package.

One woman from California, apparently not having any used books to send, ordered 6 new books from Amazon instead, over 80 dollars worth. And apparently no one listened to the header of your first post — “A note to our Minnesota readers” — because we have received packages from all across the country. At this point with well over 200 books and 300 magazines, my initial idea of passing some books around to my soldiers is moot. Instead I am working with some of the base personnel to set up a small library.

I think it is safe to say that even if the flood of books stopped today, this would still represent the largest collection of conservative American thinking to be found in Iraq. And as Al Asad is a major base in the area, it is likely to be here for several more years at least. I will be sending some photos when I can, and my soldiers have insisted on sending thank you notes to everyone. I don’t think either you or I knew quite what we were starting with this, but where it is leading is truly amazing. I’ll be in touch, and thanks again.

SGT Dave Thul

Once again, thanks to our many readers who have answered the call and expressed in this small way the deep gratitude we feel toward the Americans serving on our behalf in Iraq. And once again, Sergeant Thul’s mailing address is: